Nothing for local government, nothing for social care, nothing for schools, nothing for teachers, nothing for the police, nothing to tackle the impact of deeply entrenched inequality - in short there was nothing in Rishi Sunak’s budget that could be seen even remotely as ‘levelling-up’ as promised repeatedly by Boris Johnson’s government.
The budget earlier last month offered nothing at all for hard-pressed public sector workers, vulnerable people, struggling communities or local council finances. For example where is the long-awaited and persistently delayed green paper on social care? What happened to the promised Fair Funding Review, details of the Comprehensive Spending Review, details of the Business Rates Review or details of the Shared Prosperity Fund we were promised would replace EU Funding lost when Britain left the European Union? Where is the evidence that the government is going to deliver on its promises before the 2019 General Election that it will ‘level-up’?
Thanks to the way our magnificent NHS has rolled-out the vaccination programme over the past few months we can at last see a spark of light at the end of the tunnel. However, just as we plunged unprepared into the pandemic last year many of our struggling families will approach its end with fear and trepidation, ill-equipped to deal with the bleak post-pandemic landscape where the jobs market and the economy will be significantly weaker than they have been in generations. If they expect a hand up from the government they’ll be bitterly disappointed.
Covid-19 presented itself on the back of a decade of unnecessary austerity imposed on our communities and public services by a Tory party supported by the Lib Dems - their willing collaborators in coalition. This virtually ensured that the impact of the pandemic would hit the weakest and most vulnerable in society proportionately harder than it otherwise would have done. If this public health crisis had been handled correctly and in a timely manner (as it was in other countries) the severity of its impact on the economy could have been mitigated. Instead last autumn Rishi Sunak urged the government to prioritise private profit above public health and ignore the advice of the science, health and medical experts in SAGE to impose a circuit-break lockdown. Instead the government dithered as usual and delayed introducing circuit-break measures until much later, meaning that lockdown when it eventually came was prolonged and much more severe, with a devastating - but entirely avoidable - impact on both public health and the economy.
Before the budget announcement Boris Johnson vowed there would be no return to austerity, yet spending has been slashed by £4bn. By delaying corporation tax increases until April 2023 the government is effectively handing big businesses a £25bn tax break, while simultaneously removing the Universal Credit uplift of £20 a week in September – taking security away from some of the most vulnerable people in society. In effect the government is handing out support for private corporations at the expense of our cash-starved public services and communities.
Just a few days ago I wrote about the devastating impact on our communities of a decade of austerity on our public services and how council tax increases forced by the government are passing the blame for service cuts from central government to local councils:
I’ve had persistent concerns about the level of central government funding for local authorities - and primarily about central government passing the buck to local councils for council tax rises.
The proposal before the council meeting that considered the budget in March was for a 1.99% CT rise plus a 1% precept for social care (the government has decided it won’t fund social care to the required level, meaning that local authorities are left with a stark choice - either raise CT precept by the required amount or cut social services accordingly). I could never accept a cut to much needed social services - especially in the current climate - so I had no option other than to accept the CT level recommended.
I’ve also raised concerns in the past that County Durham’s core spending power is significantly lower than that for other parts of the country, meaning that if the government was to ‘level up’ as it has promised Durham would receive an additional £45m each and every year more than it currently receives. Instead we’ve had a decade of unnecessary austerity (costing our communities £240m to date - with more to come) along with the prospect of losing another £18m as part of the government’s ‘fair’ funding review.
Finally it should be noted that when central government decides how much it is going to allocate in grant to local councils each year it makes an assumption that every council will raise council tax by the maximum set by government - 2%, plus a social care precept of 3% over 2 years - meaning that if councils don’t raise that amount in CT they will be forced to cut local services by that amount - this is precisely what I mean by passing the buck to local councils.
No one wants to see unnecessary tax rises - but given the circumstances described above, where central government reduces funding year after year and simply passes tax increases to local councils, knowing they’ll have to shoulder all the blame - the options are limited if councils want to provide public services that people value and expect to be delivered.
